


We Remember

by opalmatrix



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Gen, Memorials, Memories, Parent-Child Relationship, Poetry, learning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-22 19:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13771377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/pseuds/opalmatrix
Summary: Elanor is not a typical Hobbit maiden.  Sam is good with that; Rose, perhaps not so much.





	We Remember

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShadowEtienne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowEtienne/gifts).



> ShadowEtienne likes families and sibling relationships. I hope this pleases! Beta by [**whymzycal**](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whymzycal/pseuds/whymzycal).

Samwise Gardner, Mayor of Hobbiton, was giving his two eldest children a geography lesson when a tumult began outside the window.

"No!" screamed Goldilocks. "I won't be a spider!"

"Won' be a 'pider!" echoed Hamfast-lad.

"It's only half a spider," wheedled Merry-lad. "You'll get to bite me, like Shelob bit Mister Frodo!"

"Look," said Pippin-lad. "Just grab Goldie's arm like this—"

"Lemme _go!_ " shrieked little Ham.

"Let him go or I'll tell Da!" Goldie shouted.

Elanor could see that her father looked more than uncomfortable. She knew that his memories of Mister Frodo could make him feel low. "I'll go take them down to the Common," she said.

"I could do it," said Frodo-lad.

Sam and Elanor exchanged a speaking look. Frodo took any excuse to skip lessons. "See to it, Ellie, there's my lass," said Sam. "Now, Frodo, where on the map would I find Rohan? "

Elanor trotted down the hall to the front parlor. Mam was rocking baby Daisy, who was teething. Rose Gamgee's middle was rounded with Elanor's next baby brother or sister, and she looked tired. Rosie-lass, who might have helped her with Daisy, was at the Twofoots' for dinner.

"The little ones are so noisy, it's fretting Dad," said Elanor. "I'll take them down to the Common for a couple of hours."

Rose smiled. "That's my thoughtful lass," she said. "Better for you to be out in the sunshine, anyway. It can't be good for a young girl to spend so much time with books!"

Elanor gave her a dutiful curtsy and hurried off, snagging a skipping rope, Goldie's favorite doll, and a small ball as she left the hole. No one had a kinder, more generous mother than she did, but Rose did not understand her oldest daughter. If Rose had her way, Elanor's days would be filled with nothing but sewing, cooking, brewing simples, and watching babies. Thank goodness for Dad, who had met wise women like Queen Arwen in his travels!

She wasn't surprised to find that the children did not want to go down to the Common, which lacked the hedges, walls, and flowerbeds that made Bag End's garden such a good playground. Elanor had to threaten Merry and Pippin with their father before they obeyed her. Fortunately, once they got there, the lads found a small crowd of boys their own ages and began a game of football. Elanor entertained Goldie and Ham for while, until Ham fell asleep on her lap and Goldilocks settled down to play with her doll and a makeshift house of sticks.

Elanor watched Goldie with one eye and thought about the Elves she had seen passing through the Shire last spring, on their way to the Sea. She knew she had been fortunate to see them at all: fewer and fewer of their kind were to be seen in Middle Earth. They had laughed fondly at her stammered Elvish greeting, but one lady had spent some time speaking with Elanor in simple sentences, correcting her pronunciation so kindly that Elanor had not felt awkward at all.

"Elanor!"

She started at her mother's voice. To her surprise, Rose had come all the way down to the Common. She seemed slightly out of breath, but she smiled at her daughter. "Daisy finally dozed off. Gammer Brockhouse is looking after her. I needed a bit of air. Goldilocks, you could use a nap, too. Elanor, can you carry Hammie back?"

Predictably, Goldie whined at this, which only proved that a nap was what she needed. Rose extracted from the boys a promise that they would head homeward when the sun touched the tops of the elms around the Common. She herded Goldilocks up to Bag End, trailed by Elanor with her little brother still fast asleep in her arms.

When the two little ones were in their cots, Rose smiled warmly at her eldest. "That's a good afternoon's work: Hamfast is getting heavy, isn't he? Why don't you get some milk and a biscuit or two for your tea? Then you can be at your book for an hour and a bit before we start supper. Rosie-lass should be home by then, too."

Elanor's eyes widened with surprise. She kissed her mother's cheek and went off to the kitchen for her tea. How kind of Mam! Perhaps Dad had had a word with her.

A quarter of an hour later, in her little room that had been Mister Frodo's when he was not much older than she was now, Elanor set out her pen, her inkwell, and a small stack of books. One was her own notebook, but the other two were precious: Frodo's own book of Elvish songs and poems, and his lexicon of Elvish.

She opened the notebook to her most recent attempt at translation, frowning at the last few words. Then she carefully opened the songbook and found the page and the line: _Nef aear, sí nef aearon._

_Aear_ was sea. _Aearon_?

That word-piece, that _-on_ , was at the end of entirely too many words. It wasn't something that meant the same thing every place you saw it.

Still, hadn't she read _Aearon_ someplace else?

She gently turned the pages of the lexicon until she came to the end, where a large piece of paper had been folded into the book many years ago. It was a map, she remembered. She opened it carefully because the paper was cracking a bit along the folds. And there, on the western edge of the map, was the word. _Aearon_. The Great Ocean.

So…the last line was _On this side of the sea, now on this side of the Great Ocean._

Elvish was magic, to fit so many Westron words into so few. After the Elvish words, Frodo had written several lines of Westron:

_We still remember, we who dwell_  
_In this far land beneath the trees_  
_The starlight on the Western Seas._

_We remember,_ thought Elanor. Dad and Mister Frodo, me and the traveling Elves: _We will remember them._

**Author's Note:**

> This story grew out of a single note about Elanor and Sam: when Sam goes over the sea, he leaves the Red Book of Westmarch to his eldest daughter. This got me thinking about the kind of person Elanor would have to be, that Sam would leave this treasure with her rather than any of his other (many) children.
> 
> I could not have created this story without the following sites:  
> 
> 
>   * [Tolkien Gateway](http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Main_Page)
>   * [ JRRVF/Hiswelókë: The Sindarin Project](https://www.jrrvf.com/hisweloke/sindar/)
> 

> 
> The image is from Nirnaeth-en-Ainur on DeviantArt.


End file.
